Calender of Events

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Lobby Mcdonalds to restore the PIG; 16 Jan 2010

At Hong Lim Park Speakers Corner, a time slot was reserved for the support to get Mcdonalds to restore back the PIG to its rightful place in the Zodiac.Please come to support. Bring your banners, posters or displays.

Instead of a pig, a Cupid (third from right) completes the line-up of 12 soft toys in the McDonald's Doraemon collection for Chinese New Year. -- ST PHOTO: ALPHONSUS CHERN

FAST-FOOD giant McDonald's has stirred up a controversy by omitting pig characters from its latest toy promotions.

The pig soft toy was expected to have been part of a 12-character Doraemon set depicting the animals of the Chinese zodiac calendar. Customers wanting the toy would have to pay $2 on top of making a food purchase.

But McDonald's decided not to include the pig toy to avoid offending Muslim customers, and had a Doraemon Cupid toy in its place instead.

The move has upset Chinese customers keen on collecting all 12 toys in the series. One of them, staff nurse Daphne Koh, 26, said: 'I was born in the Year of the Pig and would have collected the whole set. But without the pig, it makes no sense for me to do so.'

Retiree May Liaw, 55, who had wanted to buy a set to decorate her home for Chinese New Year, said: 'It is strange to have Cupid in place of the pig. The set is incomplete and I am not interested in individual pieces.'

Various online forums are also abuzz with discussions on whether the fast-food chain has overreacted.